Ask a Bookseller

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.

With the surge of ICE operations in Minnesota now in its third month, indie bookstore owners in the Twin Cities and beyond say that customers are coming in looking for three things: community, books to help them understand what's happening and books to help them escape.  

Rima Parikh, owner of the science-first bookstore The Thinking Spot in Wayzata, with some of her recommendations for leaning in. 

For a fiction read, Parikh says the classic novel “1984” by George Orwell has been popular. Set in a dystopian future where Big Brother is always watching, the novel describes a world where language is censored, history is changed, and the party in power tells people to reject the evidence of their eyes and ears. 

For a historical perspective, Parikh recommends the nonfiction book “Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America” by historian Heather Cox Richardson. 

“There are many books that try to explain the moment, but she goes way back. She goes back to the founding of America and goes through every twist and turn of our meandering history,” Parikh says. “[She] has a coherent narrative through the whole thing explaining how we got here. And essentially, her theme is that a small group of wealthy individuals have weaponized language and promoted false history, which has led us into the state of authoritarianism.”  

For a book to spark conversations among children and adults alike, Parikh recommends a pair of books, “An Illustrated Guide to Bad Arguments” and “An Illustrated Guide to Loaded Language” by Ali Almossawi. These short, illustrated books introduce logical fallacies and other ways language is used to mislead others.  

She offers this example in the book of a false equivalence: 

“It says, yesterday's violence left 12 rabbits with lost limbs and one badger with slight shoulder pain. And the response: ‘We urge both sides to show restraint.’  

“Taken as itself,” Parikh says, “urging both sides to show restraint, yes, [that’s] perfectly valid. However, in this particular context, both sides are not equivalent.” 

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.

Minnesota is in the national spotlight as the massive federal ICE operation continues. It can be a challenge to know how to talk to children about this issue, and books can be conversation starters for families, as well as sources of comfort.

Timothy Otte of Wild Rumpus Books in Minneapolis says his bookstore, which focuses on books for children, is getting requests for books about community and social justice. And while there is no one perfect book to speak to this moment, he finds himself regularly thinking about a picture book by Oliver Jeffers entitled “Begin Again: How We Got Here and Where We Might Go — Our Human Story. So Far.”

Jeffers grew up in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in the politically turbulent 1970s and 80’s, and his picture books often focus, in gentle ways, on how we treat each other and live together on one planet.

"Begin Again” is a book that Otte says feels appropriate for children and adults alike.

Here’s how Otte describes the book:

“It is about what we can do and what we can build together.

“In the book, Jeffers has a little essay describing the inspiration for the book, and in it, he says that he no longer asks people what kind of world they want, because what people say is in the negative.

“They say, ‘This is the kind of world I don't want.’ So now he asks, ‘How do you want to feel?’ And I think that's such a brilliant question, because we can build a world in which we all feel safe, we feel in community, we feel held. We want to have a place to live and food to eat and a group to be in, whether that's a family or a larger community.

“This book is a great place to find inspiration for how to make that world a reality, and the kinds of questions that we need to ask both ourselves and the people around us if we want to build that world.”

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.

Need something kind and cozy to sink into this weekend?

Allie Cesmat of Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, Ariz., recommends hopping aboard “The Elsewhere Express.”

It’s the new cozy fantasy by Samantha Sotto Yambao, who drew national attention for her novel “Water Moon,” about a pawn shop where people go to sell regrets. Cesmat compares Yambao’s writing to the playful worlds of Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli.

Cesmat says she's never read another book like it. She describes the premise:

“You are adrift in life. You're sitting there, kind of feeling like you have no purpose, nothing's going on, and all of a sudden a train pulls up and lets you on to this world that is set apart from ours. The train [contains] revolving rooms and magical dimensions. You are trying to find your purpose, and your purpose is the train compartment that you're walking towards.”

“We follow two characters on this train as they figure out their purpose is, what they're what they're missing. The train is a closed-door mystery: you don't really know what's happening next. You don't know what the tension is. It's a cozy fantasy, for sure, but it is lyrical. It is magnetic.

“And as you're reading it, you start wondering, well, what's my compartment? Where am I adrift in this world? And it brings hope and comfort that you wouldn't otherwise have.”

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.

Angel Horne of Two Friends Bookstore in Bentonville, Arkansas, recommends the novel “To the Moon and Back” by Eliana Ramage.

It’s a debut novel about a young woman’s quest to become the first Cherokee astronaut.

From a young age, Steph Harper is driven to get to space. She throws herself into education and training, determined to get out of Oklahoma.

The novel focuses on Steph and the important women in her life — her mother, her artist/influencer sister, her college girlfriend — as their relationships stretch and change through decades and across distances.

Horne appreciated the representation in this book, with a queer Cherokee woman in a STEM field at the center, and she also resonated with the setting Like the protagonist, Steph was born in the early 80s, and she appreciated watching her live through the introduction of cell phones and social media.

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.

Shannon Guinn-Collins of Bookworks in Albuquerque, New Mexico says she's still thinking about the novel "Lightbreakers" by Aja Gabel. 

Guinn-Collins recommends this novel for fans of literary time travel, as well as for readers of Jennifer Egan and Emily St. John Mandel.  

“Lightbreakers” centers on a married couple: Noah, who is a quantum physicist, and Maya, who is an artist. Shadowing Noah’s life is the loss of his young daughter with his first wife.

So, when Noah is approached by an experimental group that is exploring a form of time travel using memory, he takes the opportunity. As he steps further and further back into his own memories, Maya must grapple with the widening gulf with her husband in the present — and what that means for their future.  

Guinn-Collins offers this review: 

"The book really centers on themes of loss and longing, love and regret — all of these major human themes. It deals with really fraught, difficult topics, but it does so in a way that's really graceful. 

“Aja has a really light touch, and her writing is just gorgeous. The language she uses is really beautiful. It carries you forward in a really natural way. But I still found myself pausing and rereading passages just to enjoy what she was doing. Definitely one of my favorites from last year!” 

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.

Becky Schlosser of Cherry Street Books in Alexandria recommends the novel "The Road to Tender Hearts" by Annie Hartnett. Schlosser calls it “darkly funny and heartwarming” — a “perfect” story about imperfect people.

This story involves a road trip like no other. 63-year-old PJ Halliday — survivor of three heart attacks, million-dollar lottery winner who’s nearly spent through his money — reads in the obituaries that the husband of his high school flame has passed away.

She was the one that got away, in his mind, and now that she’s single. PJ decides to road-trip from Massachusetts to her retirement community in Arizona to win her back.

Along for the ride are two tween orphans, Luna and Ollie, for whom PJ has recently become guardian; his disgruntled adult daughter; and a seemingly clairvoyant orange cat. Also, he technically doesn’t have a license, given some past DUIs, and he’s had to borrow his ex-wife's car. What could go wrong?

Schlosser says this novel, with its sharp wit, is quirky and lovable, but it deals with some pretty heavy, tender topics.”

She recommends this story of found family and second chances to readers who like Fredrik Backman’s novels.

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.

Alena Bruzas of Francie & Finch Bookshop in Lincoln, Neb., has a recommendation sure to appeal to weather heads and fans of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Little House” series alike.

It’s called “Wilder Weather: What Laura Ingalls Wilder Teaches Us About the Weather, Climate, and Protecting What We Cherish.” Author Barbara Boustead is a meteorologist, climatologist and Wilder scholar. She brings her passions together for this nonfiction work, published by South Dakota Historical Society Press.

Readers who love Wilder’s tales of growing up in the Big Woods — and on the shores of Plum Creek, etc. — know how dramatically the weather affected her daily life. Droughts, tornadoes, locust plagues and bitterly cold winters determined whether her family would have enough to eat throughout the year. Those stories offer exciting drama, but Boustead was able to verify that most of Wilder’s weather accounting was true.

“She goes into great detail about her methodology, about the science behind gathering this data, how people have gathered data about weather since the 1800s.”

Bookseller Bruzas, who says she is generally more drawn to historical fiction than meteorology, still found the book fascinating.

“The way that she describes the Ingalls family dealing with this weather — some of it was unprecedented. It makes me realize that now we're dealing with a lot of unprecedented weather events, and it feels relevant, almost eerily relevant. She really brings it to the present."

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.

It’s that time of year when readers start to catalogue their favorite books of 2025, and for bookseller Kelly Evert, that book is “Mona’s Eyes” by Thomas Schlesser.

Evert works at Village Books and Paper Dreams, with locations in Bellingham and Lynden, Washington.

When a young girl named Mona, living in Paris, learns she’s going to go blind, her grandfather determines to show her as much visual art as he can while she can still see.

Once a week, over the course of a year, he takes her to the Louvre, the Musée d'Orsay and other French galleries, where they focus on a piece of art each time. Evert appreciated both the art discussions and the relationship between Mona and her grandfather.

“It’s just very beautiful and loving,” says Evert, who added that the dust jacket of the hardcover book includes images of all the featured artwork.

Art lovers will immediately recognize that the famed eyes on the cover belong to Johannes Vermeer’s “Girl With a Pearl Earring,” not the Mona Lisa, though Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece is one of the 52 works of art featured in the book.

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.

Mary Williams of Skylight Books in Los Angeles, Calif., recommends a nonfiction book that will appeal to readers who find joy in the natural world, including the plants growing on their window sills.

It’s called “Poppy State: A Labyrinth of Plants and a Story of Beginnings” by Myriam Gurba. It’s a book that’s deeply rooted in the author’s California home and landscape.

“It's a perfect example of how a great writer can make even a subject you wouldn't naturally gravitate towards be fascinating," said Williams.

She said the book was beautifully written, with an inventive format:

"[Gurba’s] combining memoir, botany, little bits of history from California and Mexico, family history, photos, and little bits of newspaper articles, and putting together all these puzzle pieces. She’s basically telling a story about our relationship to nature — and how we cultivate plants and land — can, in turn, heal us.

“The author talks about how she's been healing from some past traumatic experiences and some previous violent relationships. She doesn't get in too much into those stories — they've been covered in prior books — but [she’s] talking about how creating the sort of jungle of plants, including literally growing corn in her apartment, allowed her to reconnect with nature and kind of reconnect with her soul.”

Williams says she found herself surprised and delighted, as well as entertained, by the comparisons the author drew with her observations of the world.

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.

What would the contents of your purse or backpack say about you? 

Bev Newton of Innisfree Bookshop in Meredith, N.H., recommends a novel about a Parisian bookseller who is so taken by the contents of an abandoned purse, he sets off on a quest to find its owner. 

Newton calls it “the biggest little book you’ll read this year — a delightful little book." 

Laurent Letellier discovers the purse, stripped by a mugger of all its valuable or identifying objects. Inside, he discovers a red notebook along with a key chain, a hieroglyph and perfume.

Newton says the notebook is full of fragmented “memories and wishes and fears,” adding that readers who wish they kept journals will take comfort in how much can be conveyed in dashed-off remarks. 

Laurent, with help from his daughter, sets off on a quest to return the purse. But how to find a faceless, nameless woman in all of Paris?  

The novel has been available in Europe for years, but it was recently translated and made available to the American market.